(09-19-2019 07:11 PM)whittx Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 05:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 11:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 11:02 AM)Bull Wrote:  You can't have 120 FBS football teams with 10 FBS conferences get laid out so arbitrarily.

Sure you can. College sports are not a pro sports league and never will be. The universities that choose to play FBS football are not NFL team owners; they are not in any way co-equal owners who have bought into a pro league like the NFL. College conferences are and always have been loose, haphazard groupings that have more to do with historical affiliations, or sometimes marriages of convenience.

College sports are and always will be messy. Maybe it's not the best choice for the kind of sports to follow for fans who can't stand anything that isn't perfectly neat, orderly, and organized.

This is the best post in all seven pages. Wedge has it right it's not about equality or fairness.

If you want a comparison, the closest we have is the promotion and relegation system in European Soccer. Except that such promotion (to P5) and relegation (to G5 or FCS or oblivion) are not part of an annual ritual, but rather in slow motion of a glacier advance and retreat. And further factors other than simply athletic performance are at stake.

The irony is, the bigger athletics becomes, the higher the profile involved the less of a factor athletics alone is in the decision making. Because the money is so large, the decisions are removed from the AD and pushed up to the President/Chancellor office. This means being blue blood, not just athletically but also institutionally is key to admission.

Flagships: 11 B1G, 11 SEC, 7 P12, 4 B12, 2 ACC = 35 (33 states plus Texas A&M and UCLA)
Blue Blood Privates: 1 SEC, 1 B1G, 2 P12, 2 B12, 7 ACC = 13 (counting ND with ACC)
Land Grant U's (not also Flagships): 2 B1G, 2 SEC, 2 P12, 3 B12, 3 ACC = 25 (note Purdue, Mich St, Iowa St are all AAU schools).

Only Baylor, TCU, Wake and OK State are R2 schools, but the first three are all very high AI larger private schools.

What's left are Arizona State, Florida State, Texas Tech, Georgia Tech (AAU) and Louisville.

Georgia Tech is so specialized you can almost throw it in with the blue blood privates. Purdue is a Land Grant otherwise they would pretty much fit the same category. Arizona State and Florida State developed into the large institutions they are after Land Grant designation was given to their State flagships, Arizona and Florida, but they resemble the other land grants schools (Clemson, Auburn, Washington State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech). You could arguably throw Texas Tech in with the likes of Virginia Tech and Clemson, although their AI is closer to "open access" than that.

Louisville is the only regional school in the list. They are the one gatecrasher. But they are also the model of hope for other regional schools, some with low AI like Louisville, such as Memphis, SDSU, UNLV, Boise State, Fresno State, ECU and those with better AI like Temple, Cincy, Houston, UCF and USF.

So if one goes on the above criteria, and not the Louisville exception only 7 schools in G5 meet one of the first three criteria:

Flagships of larger states: UConn, UMass
High AI Privates: BYU, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa
Land Grant from Larger States: Colorado State

It's hard to argue late to start FBS football UMass belongs on the list; and the lack of emphasis and prominence on sports by Rice, Tulane and Tulsa explains their absence -- as does their smaller size. Colorado State is more of an emerging school, due to the rapid growth of the State of Colorado, and only at the beginning of it's rise, so not there yet; they perhaps belong in the better AI regional aspirants USF, UCF, Cincy and Houston grouping. (Memphis, UNLV, Fresno State, Boise State, ECU have the large mountain of academic stature to climb first). None of these aspirants can yet be called losers, as they are still in the climbing phase.

So you are left with BYU and UConn as the only logical ones who could be "shafted" by the criteria of the P5 -- and conversely Louisville the sole winner whose Athletics overcame the lack of pedigree (well their athletic budget is nearly double UCF's). Of the two UConn's failure to develop Football as an FBS power, and coming so late to the table is what doomed them.

But I can't call BYU the loser, because their door is still not shut for P5, even though timing worked against them with the B12 (LGBT and the T9 problems from Baylor that became prominent at the wrong time). Conclusion, UConn is the big loser because they spent a huge amount of money on a dead end path.

You missed the AAU flagship of a large state that is in G5 (Buffalo). Not that they are going anywhere but if you are going to include UMass and UConn...

New York's flagship is really Stony Brook because it is near NYC and got a lot of research projects from the nearby IBM's Watson Laboratory. However, Stony Brook University is only interested in baseball, not football.

(09-20-2019 07:08 AM)ArQ Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 07:11 PM)whittx Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 05:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 11:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 11:02 AM)Bull Wrote:  You can't have 120 FBS football teams with 10 FBS conferences get laid out so arbitrarily.

Sure you can. College sports are not a pro sports league and never will be. The universities that choose to play FBS football are not NFL team owners; they are not in any way co-equal owners who have bought into a pro league like the NFL. College conferences are and always have been loose, haphazard groupings that have more to do with historical affiliations, or sometimes marriages of convenience.

College sports are and always will be messy. Maybe it's not the best choice for the kind of sports to follow for fans who can't stand anything that isn't perfectly neat, orderly, and organized.

This is the best post in all seven pages. Wedge has it right it's not about equality or fairness.

If you want a comparison, the closest we have is the promotion and relegation system in European Soccer. Except that such promotion (to P5) and relegation (to G5 or FCS or oblivion) are not part of an annual ritual, but rather in slow motion of a glacier advance and retreat. And further factors other than simply athletic performance are at stake.

The irony is, the bigger athletics becomes, the higher the profile involved the less of a factor athletics alone is in the decision making. Because the money is so large, the decisions are removed from the AD and pushed up to the President/Chancellor office. This means being blue blood, not just athletically but also institutionally is key to admission.

Flagships: 11 B1G, 11 SEC, 7 P12, 4 B12, 2 ACC = 35 (33 states plus Texas A&M and UCLA)
Blue Blood Privates: 1 SEC, 1 B1G, 2 P12, 2 B12, 7 ACC = 13 (counting ND with ACC)
Land Grant U's (not also Flagships): 2 B1G, 2 SEC, 2 P12, 3 B12, 3 ACC = 25 (note Purdue, Mich St, Iowa St are all AAU schools).

Only Baylor, TCU, Wake and OK State are R2 schools, but the first three are all very high AI larger private schools.

What's left are Arizona State, Florida State, Texas Tech, Georgia Tech (AAU) and Louisville.

Georgia Tech is so specialized you can almost throw it in with the blue blood privates. Purdue is a Land Grant otherwise they would pretty much fit the same category. Arizona State and Florida State developed into the large institutions they are after Land Grant designation was given to their State flagships, Arizona and Florida, but they resemble the other land grants schools (Clemson, Auburn, Washington State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech). You could arguably throw Texas Tech in with the likes of Virginia Tech and Clemson, although their AI is closer to "open access" than that.

Louisville is the only regional school in the list. They are the one gatecrasher. But they are also the model of hope for other regional schools, some with low AI like Louisville, such as Memphis, SDSU, UNLV, Boise State, Fresno State, ECU and those with better AI like Temple, Cincy, Houston, UCF and USF.

So if one goes on the above criteria, and not the Louisville exception only 7 schools in G5 meet one of the first three criteria:

Flagships of larger states: UConn, UMass
High AI Privates: BYU, Rice, Tulane, Tulsa
Land Grant from Larger States: Colorado State

It's hard to argue late to start FBS football UMass belongs on the list; and the lack of emphasis and prominence on sports by Rice, Tulane and Tulsa explains their absence -- as does their smaller size. Colorado State is more of an emerging school, due to the rapid growth of the State of Colorado, and only at the beginning of it's rise, so not there yet; they perhaps belong in the better AI regional aspirants USF, UCF, Cincy and Houston grouping. (Memphis, UNLV, Fresno State, Boise State, ECU have the large mountain of academic stature to climb first). None of these aspirants can yet be called losers, as they are still in the climbing phase.

So you are left with BYU and UConn as the only logical ones who could be "shafted" by the criteria of the P5 -- and conversely Louisville the sole winner whose Athletics overcame the lack of pedigree (well their athletic budget is nearly double UCF's). Of the two UConn's failure to develop Football as an FBS power, and coming so late to the table is what doomed them.

But I can't call BYU the loser, because their door is still not shut for P5, even though timing worked against them with the B12 (LGBT and the T9 problems from Baylor that became prominent at the wrong time). Conclusion, UConn is the big loser because they spent a huge amount of money on a dead end path.

You missed the AAU flagship of a large state that is in G5 (Buffalo). Not that they are going anywhere but if you are going to include UMass and UConn...

New York's flagship is really Stony Brook because it is near NYC and got a lot of research projects from the nearby IBM's Watson Laboratory. However, Stony Brook University is only interested in baseball, not football.

Anyone from outside of NYC will tell you otherwise. At worst, UB is a FSU equivalent. Being near NYC doesn't mean much in SUNY land and the Land Grant school (Cornell) is much more impressive in NYC than Stony Brook.

(09-19-2019 07:15 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  This is very well stated. Now Pitt has money but no rivals. Sometimes you lose when you win.

Pitt has three traditional rivals - Penn State, WVU, and Notre Dame. All have been diminished, but was this Pitt's fault?

Penn State ceased to be an annual game when Penn State joined the B1G in 1994. Not Pitt's fault. The Notre Dame series was never annual, it was always a sporadic thing, and it will continue to be sporadic in the future so nothing has changed with that.

The one rivalry lost that Pitt is arguably responsible for is WVU, as Pitt left for the ACC, thus ending its affiliation with WVU and triggering moves that took WVU to the Big 12. But that will resume for four years beginning in 2022, and likely will be sporadic after that. Not ideal but better than nothing.

Overall, Pitt is clearly WAY better off where it is now than stuck in the AAC.

(09-20-2019 07:20 AM)whittx Wrote:  Anyone from outside of NYC will tell you otherwise. At worst, UB is a FSU equivalent. Being near NYC doesn't mean much in SUNY land and the Land Grant school (Cornell) is much more impressive in NYC than Stony Brook.

The State of New York has nothing like a flagship in an athletic sense. There just is no history of major football among the public universities. Historically, New York football history has been private - Syracuse, Cornell, Fordham, with Army being an exception though of course they are federal, not state. Cornell and Fordham haven't tried to play major college football for more than 50 years, so that leaves Syracuse and Army, and both are exactly where they want to be.

Any talk of any of the SUNYs as being a "flagship" ready for membership in a major conference like the ACC or B1G is pure fantasy.

(09-19-2019 07:59 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 07:15 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:52 AM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 09:26 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  ...Respectfully, I don’t really understand the comments about losing Pitt as a rival. Pitt and Cincinnati were not rivals when they were in the Big East. Pitt’s only real rivalry in the Big East was West Virginia. Some might say Syracuse as well, but I certainly wouldn’t. Pitt fans looked at Cincinnati very similarly to how they looked at USF and Louisville — as newcomers, nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe that would have turned into a rivalry over time but I suspect that Pitt fans would have always seen Cincinnati as being very similar to Temple – an annual opponent but certainly not rival.

I know that’s probably not fair to Cincinnati which was really more successful in the Big East than Pitt was. However, the honest truth is none of that matters.

I think what Cincinnati fans need to understand is that Pitt fans (and Syracuse and West Virginia fans, for example) were so pissed off that we had lost Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College — long-standing opponents/rivals — that we would have never seen any of them in the same light....

Gee, I never knew that Pitt fans looked down their collective nose at Cincinnati before...

Yes, you and pretty much every other Pitt fan made it abundantly clear and obvious how "you" looked and view the University of Cincinnati. We knew damn well to the Pitt fans, UC "didn't belong" in "your" conference. We knew perfectly well that you didn't consider us on par with Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College...you all never let us forget that fact. We knew that "The Big East" really and truly died in 2004. Believe it or not, you (and by this I mean, YOU, good Dr...) made that all really clear "back in the day" along with the other Panther fans.

Congratulations... You, and the rest of the "Power" teams have managed to re-sequester us "new comers" back where you think we belong. Save me the nonsense of "Hopefully Cincinnati finds a lifeboat" because what you really mean is "but not in the ACC."

We get it. Thanks.

This is very well stated. Now Pitt has money but no rivals. Sometimes you lose when you win.

Whoa, I think you have me all wrong.

I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. That was never my intention. I’m not trying to put anyone down. I’m just trying to have an honest conversation about a complex issue.

Please don’t shoot the messenger.

I cannot imagine there were too many Pitt fans who saw Cincinnati as a rival – even after you kept beating us. Maybe if the Big East had lasted 25 more years that mentality would’ve eventually subsided but I doubt it.

As for me personally, I liked Cincinnati. I like the city and I really like the school. I have close friends whose children all attended UC and I wear a Bearcats basketball T-shirt all the time. They live in a suburb called Indian Hill and it’s beautiful and right near that cool amusement park – I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s a really nice area! We are out there to visit them — or they us — a few times each year and we would always wrap a visit around the football game.

I sincerely liked having the Bearcats in the Big East.

Also, I have told this story many times but when we played Cincinnati the one year at Heinz Field and they beat us, they had to have brought 15,000 fans to the game. There were as many Cincinnati fans in Pittsburgh for that game as there are West Virginia fans when they come to town, Penn State fans when they come to town or Notre Dame fans when they come to town.

It was absolutely astounding how many people they brought to Pittsburgh for that game. For weeks afterwards Pitt fans talked about how impressive that showing was.

If the ACC were ever to have to backfill a program or if it decided to further expand Cincinnati would be right near the top of my list of preferred candidates. Honestly, UCF would be number one, but Cincinnati would probably be second.

I am definitely not anti-Cincinnati in any way. If you think I am here to thumb my nose at the University of Cincinnati, you have the wrong guy. That’s not how I operate and it’s also not how I feel.

However, if you’re asking me to pretend that Pitt and Cincinnati had this budding rivalry, I can’t do that either because that’s just not honest. That was not the feeling on this side of the fence. Honestly, after that 45-44 game, nobody was cursing Cincinnati And proclaiming them rivals. They were cursing our coach for “losing to a Conference USA school.”

Is that fair? No, it’s not fair. Does it matter? No, it doesn’t.

You are telling me that if Tulsa or Tulane or SMU suddenly proclaimed Cincinnati as one of their budding rivals, you wouldn’t have a similar feeling? What if they beat you in a big game? Would that magically change everything?

Hell, no!

You are telling me that Cincinnati fans don’t feel that they too have been kind of ripped off in conference realignment? It’s the exact same mentality — just 10 years apart.

That’s honestly how people saw it. Were they right? Of course they weren’t right! Does it matter? Not in the slightest.

For contextual purposes, we had a very similar loss the next year to UConn and the local reaction was no less forgiving of Pitt. People were not angry with the hated Huskies, they were upset that our coach kept losing to “teams like Cincinnati and Connecticut.“

It was an incredibly arrogant mindset and one I didn’t agree with. However, that was definitely the mentality.

Your analysis, from a Pitt perspective, is fair. It was what I would call a "budding" rivalry. I don't think it would have taken 25 years to get there though. I was living in Columbus at the time UC was in the Big East, and one thing I noticed was that UC-Pitt games got a lot of play here in Ohio. It wasn't just Cincinnati people who took notice, even people in Columbus (those who would not normally watch UC) were watching UC-Pitt. The Sports talk radio guys in Columbus even took a few moments away from talking about Ohio State to talk about the game. If you go back to those years, the UC-Pitt games had very good TV ratings. So while Pitt fans saw the game as UC fans perceive a UC/Tulsa game, there where a lot more eyeballs on that series than what UC/Tulsa could ever muster.

This series had a lot of potential to get very big over time. TBH, much bigger than what Pitt v. anyone in the ACC save for maybe Syracuse (given your history).

(09-20-2019 07:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 07:15 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  This is very well stated. Now Pitt has money but no rivals. Sometimes you lose when you win.

Pitt has three traditional rivals - Penn State, WVU, and Notre Dame. All have been diminished, but was this Pitt's fault?

Penn State ceased to be an annual game when Penn State joined the B1G in 1994. Not Pitt's fault. The Notre Dame series was never annual, it was always a sporadic thing, and it will continue to be sporadic in the future so nothing has changed with that.

The one rivalry lost that Pitt is arguably responsible for is WVU, as Pitt left for the ACC, thus ending its affiliation with WVU and triggering moves that took WVU to the Big 12. But that will resume for four years beginning in 2022, and likely will be sporadic after that. Not ideal but better than nothing.

Overall, Pitt is clearly WAY better off where it is now than stuck in the AAC.

The Pitt/ND series was very close to an annual thing. Check the link:

https://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/active...eamid=2581


The irony is that now, as fellow ACC members in all sports but football and with a five football game per year scheduling agreement with the conference, ND plays Pitt less now than ever.

(09-20-2019 07:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 07:15 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  This is very well stated. Now Pitt has money but no rivals. Sometimes you lose when you win.

Pitt has three traditional rivals - Penn State, WVU, and Notre Dame. All have been diminished, but was this Pitt's fault?

Penn State ceased to be an annual game when Penn State joined the B1G in 1994. Not Pitt's fault. The Notre Dame series was never annual, it was always a sporadic thing, and it will continue to be sporadic in the future so nothing has changed with that.

The one rivalry lost that Pitt is arguably responsible for is WVU, as Pitt left for the ACC, thus ending its affiliation with WVU and triggering moves that took WVU to the Big 12. But that will resume for four years beginning in 2022, and likely will be sporadic after that. Not ideal but better than nothing.

Overall, Pitt is clearly WAY better off where it is now than stuck in the AAC.

Oh, there’s no question that Pitt is better off in the ACC than it would’ve been in the BE or AAC. I can’t even fathom how anyone could possibly suggest otherwise?

However, the rivals thing is a little bit more complicated than that.

Penn State stopping ceasing to play Pittsburgh had a lot more to do with old grudges than Penn State’s conference affiliation. If it was just conference affiliation related, which is their new line of defense, Iowa and Iowa State would no longer play. It was definitely a score settling thing for Paterno.

However, that is also Pitt’s fault because they allowEd their program to slip to such levels that Penn State could end the series. Had Pitt stayed competitive, Penn State would not have had the juice to end one of the oldest rivalries in college football.

As for Notre Dame, sporadic is not how I would describe it. They didn’t always play annually, but I am pretty sure that Pitt is Notre Dame‘s fourth or fifth most played opponent after USC, Navy, etc.

You have to understand that Pittsburgh has a huge Irish Catholic population – including me – and for a lot of us, family members attended Notre Dame or grew up as Notre Dame subway alumni and that made it a really big game here. They recruited the hell out of this area over the years as well. Playing them once every six or seven years now is definitely going to be a major change.

The cessation of the Backyard Brawl is Pitt’s fault. They look down their nose at West Virginia culturally, which is ridiculous. However, they see Penn State and Notre Dame as more than just football rivals. As I said, it’s not at all uncommon for local families to have Pitt, Penn State and even Notre Dame grads (or fans) among them. They do not see West Virginia as anything other than an athletic rivalry.

Pitt needs to get over itself and reschedule a long-term deal for the Backyard Brawl — to be played annually on rivalry weekend at the end of the college football season. That would be a huge win for everyone, IMHO.

I understand the thinking is that West Virginia isn’t right really a major factor in Pittsburgh anymore because they play all of their games in the Great Plains states. That’s largely true, but it also doesn’t matter. Swallow your pride and bring back the one rival who will still have you on an annual basis.

(09-18-2019 04:13 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 02:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  It's hard to call anyone other than UConn as the biggest loser because they legitimately went from "next in line" for an ACC invite (being THISCLOSE to getting the spot instead of Louisville) to the point today where they realize that they will probably *never* receive a P5 invite for at least this generation (if not ever). It was essentially a coin flip for them being an ACC member versus where they are today... and the coin landed on the wrong side.

UConn would be in the ACC today if the Louisville basketball stripper story had become public before the ACC invited Louisville.

I could be wrong, but didn't the ACC make there decision based on football. If it was not UL, would it not have been Cincinnati.

(09-19-2019 01:16 PM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 11:02 AM)Bronco85 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:52 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 07:52 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 06:16 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Idaho is a huge winner, as they are no longer paying the higher costs of FBS football.

Their finances are worse than they were before though.

Not only has Idaho lost their place in an FBS conference (and then FBS altogether), but they've also lost their biggest rivalry game and are steadily sliding towards losing top status in their own state.

But why did they go down to FCS to begin with? Because FBS was losing money and was unsustainable for them. They don't move down willingly. Maybe a move to FCS will prove to be a case of frying pan into the fire, but FBS was the original problem.

No. FBS had proven to be sustainable financially as long as they had an FBS home. Unlike NMSU who can make independence work for awhile, the Vandals do not have two historical and regional rivals in FBS who were willing to play them H&H forever. UI is regionally isolated and had the smallest stadium in FBS and hence has significant problems getting home games without the benefit of a conference (whereas NMSU has a legitimate 30,000 seat stadium). True, this problem is because UI did nothing to make their game day facilities FBS worthy over several decades, but FCS has proven to be a financial disaster for Idaho and UI would have been content to solider on and be financially solvent in the AD as a member of any FBS conference. Alas, no current FBS conference wants them.

Part of the issue with Idaho is their facilities. The Kibbie Dome is a serviceable FCS facility, but in pretty much every measure not suitable for FBS. Not only that, there is no way the Kibbie Dome could be made into a workable FBS facility; replacement was the only option and Idaho showed no desire or ability to replace the Kibbie Dome...all they ever did was marginally add onto it. This is a serious issue facing a program without a conference to back them up; what conference wants to take on a program that has shown only a desire to soak up $$$ but no plan to substantially contribute back to the worth of the conference? (This is an issue with UMass as well.) Liberty is almost the opposite; they come to the table with a proven desire to increase the value of a conference; their chances of getting a conference invite are head-and-shoulders above Idaho, NM State, and UMass.

Idaho was trying to play FBS at an FCS level. They are better off in FCS.

You continue my point regarding UI facilities. The Kibbie Dome is not an FBS facility and their basketball arena was a big detriment, too (although they have broken ground on a new BB arena). This is the part of their predicament the UoI could have and should have taken care of if they wanted to be FBS. Rather than fix the game day facilities issues, they made them worse. Not only did they have the smallest stadium in FBS, they actually downsized it. It might not have helped in terms of being more attractive to a conference, but it would have made FBS independence possible. However, UI has fallen considerably in athletic esteem in the region, they are in an unsustainable economic position in their AD, support in terms of attendance and donations has collapsed, and they have not been competitive in FB in the BSC. The only upsides for the Vandals thus far are they are in the only FCS conference that welcomes and wants them, there are a few games now where the few traveling fans UI has remaining can travel to more easily, and UM does help put fans in the seats when they play in Moscow.

(09-20-2019 07:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Overall, Pitt is clearly WAY better off where it is now than stuck in the AAC.

Of course. Pitt and WVU took their opportunities to get into a P5 conference, and any other AAC team would have done the same thing. No one is seriously arguing that they should have said no to the P5 just so they could play football against each other every season.

I suppose we could play the "what if Pitt had gone to the Big 12 instead of the ACC" hypothetical (which would put them in with WVU), but AFAIK that never got to the point of being a real possibility.

(09-18-2019 02:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  (1) No one that is actually in a P5 conference (e.g. West Virginia, Maryland) could ever be considered a "loser". While fans may bemoan the loss of historic rivalries or the haphazard geography of conference realignment, the economic divide is so massive between the P5 and everyone else that hearing a P5 school complain about its lot in life is like having a billionaire complain about the quality of a high-end steakhouse to the waiter that is living on food stamps or that their life in a deluxe apartment on the Upper East Side of New York is so tough compared to their old mansion in Beverly Hills. Cry me f*cking river! No one has a perfect life, but some problems are waaaaaay worse than other problems... and any problems of the P5 schools certainly don't compare to any G5 schools.

I disagree completely. Is Rutgers making a lot more money than they would in the AAC? Undoubtedly. Are they forced to spend a whole lot more money to keep up with the Joneses in the Big Ten? Yes. And by "keeping up" do we mean "be historically noncompetitive and a national joke?" Yes.

Is Rutgers better off with $80M in annual income, spending $70M, to go 2-10 every year in the Big Ten? Or is Rutgers better off with $20M in annual income, spending $10M, and not being a national punchline in the AAC?

(09-20-2019 09:50 AM)sierrajip Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 04:13 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 02:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  It's hard to call anyone other than UConn as the biggest loser because they legitimately went from "next in line" for an ACC invite (being THISCLOSE to getting the spot instead of Louisville) to the point today where they realize that they will probably *never* receive a P5 invite for at least this generation (if not ever). It was essentially a coin flip for them being an ACC member versus where they are today... and the coin landed on the wrong side.

UConn would be in the ACC today if the Louisville basketball stripper story had become public before the ACC invited Louisville.

I could be wrong, but didn't the ACC make there decision based on football. If it was not UL, would it not have been Cincinnati.

Yes.

I'd venture a guess that the folks involved in the process of the football schools taking a stand against UConn actually went into the discussion thinking that Cincy was who was going to be Maryland's replacement because of Louisville's academics. The outright capitulation of the basketball schools on Louisville was a welcome surprise, and gives an indication of how seriously the schools who did support UConn took the threat of the football school leaving if they were added. But make no mistake, if it hadn't been Louisville it would have been Cincy because there was no way anyone who was against UConn in the beginning was changing their vote. There wasn't any realistic path for UConn to get an ACC offer outside of the media and message board talk.

(09-20-2019 11:10 AM)ccd494 Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 02:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  (1) No one that is actually in a P5 conference (e.g. West Virginia, Maryland) could ever be considered a "loser". While fans may bemoan the loss of historic rivalries or the haphazard geography of conference realignment, the economic divide is so massive between the P5 and everyone else that hearing a P5 school complain about its lot in life is like having a billionaire complain about the quality of a high-end steakhouse to the waiter that is living on food stamps or that their life in a deluxe apartment on the Upper East Side of New York is so tough compared to their old mansion in Beverly Hills. Cry me f*cking river! No one has a perfect life, but some problems are waaaaaay worse than other problems... and any problems of the P5 schools certainly don't compare to any G5 schools.

I disagree completely. Is Rutgers making a lot more money than they would in the AAC? Undoubtedly. Are they forced to spend a whole lot more money to keep up with the Joneses in the Big Ten? Yes. And by "keeping up" do we mean "be historically noncompetitive and a national joke?" Yes.

Is Rutgers better off with $80M in annual income, spending $70M, to go 2-10 every year in the Big Ten? Or is Rutgers better off with $20M in annual income, spending $10M, and not being a national punchline in the AAC?

They have a couple 4 win seasons in the Big Ten. They aren’t going 1-11, 2-10 every year.

(09-19-2019 07:59 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 07:15 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:52 AM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 09:26 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  ...Respectfully, I don’t really understand the comments about losing Pitt as a rival. Pitt and Cincinnati were not rivals when they were in the Big East. Pitt’s only real rivalry in the Big East was West Virginia. Some might say Syracuse as well, but I certainly wouldn’t. Pitt fans looked at Cincinnati very similarly to how they looked at USF and Louisville — as newcomers, nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe that would have turned into a rivalry over time but I suspect that Pitt fans would have always seen Cincinnati as being very similar to Temple – an annual opponent but certainly not rival.

I know that’s probably not fair to Cincinnati which was really more successful in the Big East than Pitt was. However, the honest truth is none of that matters.

I think what Cincinnati fans need to understand is that Pitt fans (and Syracuse and West Virginia fans, for example) were so pissed off that we had lost Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College — long-standing opponents/rivals — that we would have never seen any of them in the same light....

Gee, I never knew that Pitt fans looked down their collective nose at Cincinnati before...

Yes, you and pretty much every other Pitt fan made it abundantly clear and obvious how "you" looked and view the University of Cincinnati. We knew damn well to the Pitt fans, UC "didn't belong" in "your" conference. We knew perfectly well that you didn't consider us on par with Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College...you all never let us forget that fact. We knew that "The Big East" really and truly died in 2004. Believe it or not, you (and by this I mean, YOU, good Dr...) made that all really clear "back in the day" along with the other Panther fans.

Congratulations... You, and the rest of the "Power" teams have managed to re-sequester us "new comers" back where you think we belong. Save me the nonsense of "Hopefully Cincinnati finds a lifeboat" because what you really mean is "but not in the ACC."

We get it. Thanks.

This is very well stated. Now Pitt has money but no rivals. Sometimes you lose when you win.

Whoa, I think you have me all wrong.

I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings. That was never my intention. I’m not trying to put anyone down. I’m just trying to have an honest conversation about a complex issue.

Please don’t shoot the messenger.

I cannot imagine there were too many Pitt fans who saw Cincinnati as a rival – even after you kept beating us. Maybe if the Big East had lasted 25 more years that mentality would’ve eventually subsided but I doubt it.

As for me personally, I liked Cincinnati. I like the city and I really like the school. I have close friends whose children all attended UC and I wear a Bearcats basketball T-shirt all the time. They live in a suburb called Indian Hill and it’s beautiful and right near that cool amusement park – I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s a really nice area! We are out there to visit them — or they us — a few times each year and we would always wrap a visit around the football game.

I sincerely liked having the Bearcats in the Big East.

Also, I have told this story many times but when we played Cincinnati the one year at Heinz Field and they beat us, they had to have brought 15,000 fans to the game. There were as many Cincinnati fans in Pittsburgh for that game as there are West Virginia fans when they come to town, Penn State fans when they come to town or Notre Dame fans when they come to town.

It was absolutely astounding how many people they brought to Pittsburgh for that game. For weeks afterwards Pitt fans talked about how impressive that showing was.

If the ACC were ever to have to backfill a program or if it decided to further expand Cincinnati would be right near the top of my list of preferred candidates. Honestly, UCF would be number one, but Cincinnati would probably be second.

I am definitely not anti-Cincinnati in any way. If you think I am here to thumb my nose at the University of Cincinnati, you have the wrong guy. That’s not how I operate and it’s also not how I feel.

However, if you’re asking me to pretend that Pitt and Cincinnati had this budding rivalry, I can’t do that either because that’s just not honest. That was not the feeling on this side of the fence. Honestly, after that 45-44 game, nobody was cursing Cincinnati And proclaiming them rivals. They were cursing our coach for “losing to a Conference USA school.”

Is that fair? No, it’s not fair. Does it matter? No, it doesn’t.

You are telling me that if Tulsa or Tulane or SMU suddenly proclaimed Cincinnati as one of their budding rivals, you wouldn’t have a similar feeling? What if they beat you in a big game? Would that magically change everything?

Hell, no!

You are telling me that Cincinnati fans don’t feel that they too have been kind of ripped off in conference realignment? It’s the exact same mentality — just 10 years apart.

That’s honestly how people saw it. Were they right? Of course they weren’t right! Does it matter? Not in the slightest.

For contextual purposes, we had a very similar loss the next year to UConn and the local reaction was no less forgiving of Pitt. People were not angry with the hated Huskies, they were upset that our coach kept losing to “teams like Cincinnati and Connecticut.“

It was an incredibly arrogant mindset and one I didn’t agree with. However, that was definitely the mentality.

The 'rivalry' talk around that time was mainly because of 2 things:

1) UC-Pitt were repeatedly playing crucial conference games
2) The tension between the Bengals & Steelers that had built for a number of years before then. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are in each other's divison in both MLB & NFL, so there was natural tension there.

It wasn't really a college rivalry at all, but the big games and emotion that go with rivalries was already present, so it had a good chance to develop into one if the added ingredient of time had been present. We even had a hilariously sad trophy already.

But you are correct that UC & Pitt weren't really rivals. I get what you are saying. Rivalries need time and there wasn't near enough of it in the BE.

(09-20-2019 12:03 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(09-20-2019 09:50 AM)sierrajip Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 04:13 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 02:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  It's hard to call anyone other than UConn as the biggest loser because they legitimately went from "next in line" for an ACC invite (being THISCLOSE to getting the spot instead of Louisville) to the point today where they realize that they will probably *never* receive a P5 invite for at least this generation (if not ever). It was essentially a coin flip for them being an ACC member versus where they are today... and the coin landed on the wrong side.

UConn would be in the ACC today if the Louisville basketball stripper story had become public before the ACC invited Louisville.

I could be wrong, but didn't the ACC make there decision based on football. If it was not UL, would it not have been Cincinnati.

Yes.

I'd venture a guess that the folks involved in the process of the football schools taking a stand against UConn actually went into the discussion thinking that Cincy was who was going to be Maryland's replacement because of Louisville's academics. The outright capitulation of the basketball schools on Louisville was a welcome surprise, and gives an indication of how seriously the schools who did support UConn took the threat of the football school leaving if they were added. But make no mistake, if it hadn't been Louisville it would have been Cincy because there was no way anyone who was against UConn in the beginning was changing their vote. There wasn't any realistic path for UConn to get an ACC offer outside of the media and message board talk.

I don't know if that's true, but if it is, then UC was extremely close to being in both the ACC & Big 12 because the UofL/UC delayed addition to the Big 12 proposal to go with WVU/TCU was far closer than most people realize.

I think why UC fans feel like the biggest losers is that they were given a shot in a power league (partially undeserved to be argued) and proceeded to take advantage of it in almost every way. And then to still be relegated back after showing that the programs at UC were power level was what was so frustrating. I actually get why every decision around realignment was made, but in a world where it feels like so many schools screw up their chance in the spotlight, it felt like UC was thriving, so it felt unjust to be relegated back, even if just isn't on the radar of how these things work.

(09-20-2019 11:10 AM)ccd494 Wrote:  

(09-18-2019 02:54 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  (1) No one that is actually in a P5 conference (e.g. West Virginia, Maryland) could ever be considered a "loser". While fans may bemoan the loss of historic rivalries or the haphazard geography of conference realignment, the economic divide is so massive between the P5 and everyone else that hearing a P5 school complain about its lot in life is like having a billionaire complain about the quality of a high-end steakhouse to the waiter that is living on food stamps or that their life in a deluxe apartment on the Upper East Side of New York is so tough compared to their old mansion in Beverly Hills. Cry me f*cking river! No one has a perfect life, but some problems are waaaaaay worse than other problems... and any problems of the P5 schools certainly don't compare to any G5 schools.

I disagree completely. Is Rutgers making a lot more money than they would in the AAC? Undoubtedly. Are they forced to spend a whole lot more money to keep up with the Joneses in the Big Ten? Yes. And by "keeping up" do we mean "be historically noncompetitive and a national joke?" Yes.

Is Rutgers better off with $80M in annual income, spending $70M, to go 2-10 every year in the Big Ten? Or is Rutgers better off with $20M in annual income, spending $10M, and not being a national punchline in the AAC?

Frank is right about no P5 school being a loser in realignment. Of course Rutgers is better off in the Big Ten. They may be roundly ridiculed for athletic impotence, but they can laugh all the way to the bank. And eventually, all that Big Ten money might contribute to improved athletic prowess.

(09-20-2019 07:31 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(09-20-2019 07:20 AM)whittx Wrote:  Anyone from outside of NYC will tell you otherwise. At worst, UB is a FSU equivalent. Being near NYC doesn't mean much in SUNY land and the Land Grant school (Cornell) is much more impressive in NYC than Stony Brook.

The State of New York has nothing like a flagship in an athletic sense. There just is no history of major football among the public universities. Historically, New York football history has been private - Syracuse, Cornell, Fordham, with Army being an exception though of course they are federal, not state. Cornell and Fordham haven't tried to play major college football for more than 50 years, so that leaves Syracuse and Army, and both are exactly where they want to be.

Any talk of any of the SUNYs as being a "flagship" ready for membership in a major conference like the ACC or B1G is pure fantasy.

But when you put UMASS and UConn in the discussion, you had to throw Buffalo in too, particularly if you look at their schedules in the years leading up to the Football program shutting down. The Yankee Conference would be at a level below a Buffalo program that was in the University Division. If they had stuck with football, the AAU membership adds a gravitas that none of the three public schools listed can bring to the table. The 2004 Big East would have brought UB in, especially if the conference hadn't been forced to add Virginia Tech instead of Syracuse. I do agree that it would take the Bills moving to open up the western NY corporate spigot to find the facilities upgrades needed to go to the next level.

(09-18-2019 10:40 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  Is it still UConn now that they're headed for the Big East and football independence?

Is it Cincinnati/USF, who both went from a P5 league and arguably the greatest basketball league to a G5 league? (Don't give me that P6 nonsense.)

Is it a school like Southern Miss, who has seen all its former C-USA rivals besides UAB move on to the American (or in the case of TCU and Louisville, P5 leagues)?

Is it West Virginia, who lost all its rivals and misses out on memberships to the SEC and ACC?

Is it someone else?

It must be UCONN. They have gone from a power conference (although the least of the power conferences) to almost nothing in football. Perhaps they will be happy finishing in the bottom half of the Big East basketball.

The second most questionable is Southern Miss. They are one of the few who fell from a below average conference to a horrid conference without making a change. It is also the case that they do not play a power role in the new CUSA as they did in the old CUSA.

Cincy and USF also took a step downwards.

Discuss.

(09-19-2019 05:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  What's left are Arizona State, Florida State, Texas Tech, Georgia Tech (AAU) and Louisville.

Georgia Tech is so specialized you can almost throw it in with the blue blood privates. Purdue is a Land Grant otherwise they would pretty much fit the same category. Arizona State and Florida State developed into the large institutions they are after Land Grant designation was given to their State flagships, Arizona and Florida, but they resemble the other land grants schools (Clemson, Auburn, Washington State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech). You could arguably throw Texas Tech in with the likes of Virginia Tech and Clemson, although their AI is closer to "open access" than that.

Arizona and Florida (in this case Arizona State and Florida State) are the poster child of "special case".

1950 there were less than three quarters of a million people in Arizona. By the time the Pac-12 called it was over 2 million and currently at just over 6 million.

In 1950 Florida had around 2.7 million people by the time the SEC and ACC called the Seminoles the state was pushing 13 million and is estimated over 21 million now.

(09-20-2019 02:46 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 05:25 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  What's left are Arizona State, Florida State, Texas Tech, Georgia Tech (AAU) and Louisville.

Georgia Tech is so specialized you can almost throw it in with the blue blood privates. Purdue is a Land Grant otherwise they would pretty much fit the same category. Arizona State and Florida State developed into the large institutions they are after Land Grant designation was given to their State flagships, Arizona and Florida, but they resemble the other land grants schools (Clemson, Auburn, Washington State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech). You could arguably throw Texas Tech in with the likes of Virginia Tech and Clemson, although their AI is closer to "open access" than that.

Arizona and Florida (in this case Arizona State and Florida State) are the poster child of "special case".

1950 there were less than three quarters of a million people in Arizona. By the time the Pac-12 called it was over 2 million and currently at just over 6 million.

In 1950 Florida had around 2.7 million people by the time the SEC and ACC called the Seminoles the state was pushing 13 million and is estimated over 21 million now.

Right. Population growth is the key in both states.

Phoenix is the third-largest media market in the Pac-12 today, 12th largest in the USA.